Maybe the Federation just deploys planetary shields on all their worlds, rendering the doomsday weapon moot, while also giving all of their member and colony worlds a much needed defense against aggressors?

Maybe the Federation just deploys planetary shields on all their worlds, rendering the doomsday weapon moot, while also giving all of their member and colony worlds a much needed defense against aggressors?

Do they even have the technical capacity to do that? I know we've seen one or two alien races with planetary shields (or at least planetary cloaking devices), but have ever seen anything comparable with the Federation? If they did, you'd think Earth wouldn't be so vulnerable all the time, what with space whales, Breen, etc. attacking it.

And if they did, would they have the resources/finances to employ them on every potential target world?

Currently? No. A couple hundred years to do so? Yeah. They will at least be able to place them on major targets, such as Earth, Andoria, Vulcan, etc. reducing the amount of places they need to hunt the weapons down for.

Hell, they might be able to alter the MIDAS array to scan sectors in a fraction of the time it would take by ship. Might limit their ability to make galactic phone calls though.

That's the problem with a doomsday weapon that takes centuries, Starfleet usually uses that kind of time wisely. Look at Starfleet's build up after the Borg, or their adaptation to Dominion weaponry after a couple of years. They didn't putter around and go, "Well, that's a few years away, we can take our sweet time."

The Ascension are also riding on their cloaking technology for such warheads to not become outdated, which it almost certainly will. Note how easily Voyager dispatched an outdated Klingon cruiser in the episode"Prophecy"

"Captain Data's selection of probable target worlds and suggestion that we use a tachyon detection grid to uncover the cloaked weapons worked; we found one of the weapons, aimed at Vulcan. The problem is, it wasn't a relativistic kill vehicle at all."

"No?"

"No. It was traveling at warp two. It was equipped with a cloaking device and stealth coating, just as the Ascension said. If we hadn't started our search at Vulcan and simply assumed we were looking for a weapon traveling at relativistic speed, we'd have missed it."

"Warp two? Vulcan's only a month away at that speed; we thought we had centuries before these 'planet killers' were a threat! But I don't understand; a projectile traveling at warp would be less damaging than a relativistic projectile; it's only the warp field itself doing the damage. Why-"

"Because it's not a projectile," Dornez said grimly. "It's a bomb."

"How big a bomb are we talking about?" Picard asked, still puzzled.

"Planet killing, just as advertised. But it isn't an explosion or impact we need to be worried about; it's a strangelet bomb."

"A strangelet bomb? I thought those were only theoretical."

"Yes and no. You didn't hear any of this, but a few decades ago the Federation was experimenting with something called Genesis; it could convert a dead planet into a living one, ready for colonization. Or a living planet into a dead one. The initial reaction used by Genesis converted all matter into strangelets, and then those were converted into the desired matter via a process similar to a replicator, but much more complex. Turns out, the results weren't stable at all, rendering it useless for instant terraforming, and the potential for its use as a weapon was too great. Most of the data from the project was destroyed, and further research banned. The whole thing is classified, so forget I said anything. The point is, Picard, a strangelet bomb is entirely possible and the Ascension built one."

"Fils de pute. I assume we stopped it?"

"Yes. It was covered in launchers for those damned bomb-pumped x-ray lasers the Ascension love so much, so we damn near lost a couple of ships to that nasty surprise, but we stopped it. That's how we discovered what it was; the containment for the strange matter was breached and it converted the whole damned thing. Spat radiation everywhere throughout the entire process too. No warp field, so it dropped to low sublight speeds. It won't be a threat to Vulcan for a few million years now, assuming it was still able to intercept it; at that speed, Vulcan will here and gone by the time it arrives. But anything it comes into contact with will also be converted into strangelets, so it's still a serious threat. We know how to neutralize it, but that'll take time. Meanwhile, we're still looking for more of the damned things."

Picard leaned back in his chair, silently grinding his teeth. A strangelet bomb! Just a small amount of such degenerate matter could 'infect' an entire world, kill everything on it, and convert the planet into a miniature quark star. The Ascension had well and truly outdone themselves with their 'planet killer'. They also hadn't been bluffing, nor had they been very truthful about the nature of the weapon. No wonder they'd given the Federation a three day deadline to conclude negotiations; they didn't just want to rush them into making concessions at the negotiating table, they also wanted to end the war before any of their weapons reached their targets. Picard suddenly had a terrible thought.

"Admiral, are there any targets that could be reached by these weapons within the next forty-eight hours?"

"Commodore, pardon the intrusion," Lieutenant Stannis said over the intercom. "We have an urgent message from Ambassador Trent."

"Patch it through, Picard; I'd like to hear it."

The ambassador appeared in split-screen on Picard's display, looking exhausted but triumphant.

"It's done. We've hammered out a treaty both negotiating teams have agreed to, and we're sending them to our respective governments for approval. It's not a 100% guarantee, but I believe we've successfully brought this war to a conclusion."

"That's excellent news, Ambassador. Could you share some details?"

"The Ascension have accepted partial blame for the conflict, and have agreed to pay reparations for their part in the war. They're ceding the Jameson System to us, and will issue a formal apology to all Federation victims of the war. They've agreed to pay compensation to the families of those killed in San Francisco and Starbase Gamma Epsilon, though the exact details of said compensation will be decided at a later date. We've agreed to establish a neutral zone between Federation and Ascension space; not hard to do, given that we don't share a border with them, other than the Jameson System, which is exempt from the neutral zone. We've agreed to compensate the Ascension for the loss of their colony cylinders in the form of raw materials to construct new ones. Both sides are to keep the other appraised of the number and type of starships their respective militaries possess and have under construction. Both sides will establish formal diplomatic relations with the other, to include an Ascension embassy on Earth and a Federation embassy on Home, the Ascension homeworld. Any human colony outside of Ascension space that wishes to join, ally with, or trade with the Ascension will be allowed to do so, provided it is not currently a member of the Federation. Any Ascension citizens who wish to emigrate to the Federation or return to Earth will be allowed to do so. Both Starfleet and the Ascension Space Force will provide exchange officers to serve aboard their opposite's ships as observers, similar to the exchange program we have with the Klingons. This exchange program is to last for two years, at which time it is optional to renew the program. Both sides have also agreed to a mutual non-aggression pact, to be renewed every ten years. There's a few other details and clauses, but those are the major points. It's a compromise; we both get some of what we want, and we both get disappointed. But I think this is as good as it gets."

"What about their planet killers?"

"As soon as the treaty is ratified by both governments, they'll give us a code to broadcast that will shut down all of the weapons. They'll also transmit the location of each one, and instruct us as to how best to dispose of them. They'll be sending a frigate to each one to ensure it's destroyed, but they'll let us do the work of destroying them, as assurance. We want to be reassured that the things are really destroyed, and they want to be reassured we don't capture them or turn them against them."

Dornez looked relieved to hear this, then commented, "We'll still be spending the next six months searching for more of the damned things, just to be sure."

"Is there anything else, Ambassador?" Picard asked.

"Not at the moment. I'll send you the full text of the treaty in just a moment, I need to get in touch with the president and the Federation council as quickly as possible; my staff are already contacting them, but I need to be personally involved."

"I understand. Well done, Ambassador."

"Thank you, Commodore. Trent out."

----------------------------------

Three hours and some minor rewording later, the treaty was signed, formally ending the war between the Ascension and the United Federation of Planets. By the end of the day, five more strangelet bombs had been disposed of, to the satisfaction of both sides. Starfleet's ships returned to Federation space, and the handful of Ascension ships that had overseen the disposal of the planet killers had returned to Ascension space. Arrangements were being made for both nation-states to establish embassies and permanent diplomatic staff with each other, and an Andorian transport was en route to pick up the Federation citizens held prisoner by the Ascension, as well as what remained of the USS Titan after it had been stripped down and studied. The Ascension had put most of what they'd dismantled back, but not reassembled the ship; it would be months, or even a year, before the Titan could return to service.

Neither side was entirely satisfied with the treaty, but both were glad the shooting was over.

All told, it could have been much worse, especially as the Ascension had actually been holding back for much of the conflict. Had their ground forces been used to occupy Federation worlds, or if they'd decided to bomb colonies from orbit, the death toll would have been catastrophic. And it was very doubtful that Starfleet could have dealt with an Ascension army in an entrenched position without unacceptable losses. Still, the end result would have inevitably been the same: in a war of attrition, the Ascension would have lost to superior numbers and technology. If they'd been more ruthless and willing to target civilians, if they'd continued to fight to the death rather than sue for peace, Starfleet would have been mauled and the Federation bloodied worse than any prior conflict short of the Dominion War. It was incredible what a fairly small, technologically backward nation of isolationists could do, if they had the will to do it.

That thought made Picard extremely uncomfortable. The Ascension were led by Augments, whose intelligence was very high. Their lack of technological advancement, it turned out, was due to a lack of infrastructure due to starting from almost nothing and focusing on establishing their homeworld for much of their history; their current size was due solely to rapid expansion spurred by first contact with a Federation ship causing them to panic and try to acquire as much space as possible, to create a defense-in-depth between their homeworld and what they believed to be a genocidal people bent on vengeance for the Eugenics Wars, who would seek to 'finish the job' once they discovered the Ascension's true identity. Had the Federation not encountered them early in their history, they likely wouldn't have expanded so far into space or developed such a massive military presence.

But now such constraints were no longer upon them. The Ascension had enough territory, enough resources, that they could begin developing their technological base further. Their genius-level intelligence, at least among their human population, meant they were incredibly resourceful and creative when it came to developing new technology and tactics, as the strangelet bombs proved. And they weren't at all shy about tackling large, resource and labor-intensive engineering projects, as the massive O'Neill cylinder space colonies demonstrated. All told, they were an extremely formidable people.

And now they had access to a large cache of Federation technology and information. They'd already begun to catch up in terms of technology, introducing ships with modern shields, cloaking devices, and faster warp drives. How long before their ships were completely on par with Starfleet vessels? Or, given their durability and the massive amount of firepower they could put out with those missile volleys, how long until their ships were superior to their Starfleet equivalents? And would the Ascension continue to abide by the peace once they were militarily on equal or greater footing?

Troubled, Picard sat in his ready room, glass of tea forgotten, and stared out into the depths of space, pondering the future.

The End. To be continued in a sequel story.

Thoughts? Questions? Critiques? Yes, the ending is a little rushed, but there honestly isn't much more I could do with this chapter of the story without resorting to padding.

Nice story, looking forward to the sequel.
Question is, how did the Ascension get their hands on the blueprints of the Genesisdevice- I guess there's going to be a spyhunt, and some very tense encounters along the new neutral zone..

"In view of the circumstances, Britannia waives the rules."

"All you have to do is to look at Northern Ireland, [...] to see how seriously the religious folks take "thou shall not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable." George Carlin

"We need to make gay people live in fear again! What ever happened to the traditional family values of persecution and lies?" - Darth Wong
"The closet got full and some homosexuals may have escaped onto the internet?"- Stormbringer

I don't think they did. I believe the Ascension came across stranglet technology on their own.

I'm getting senile, perhaps, but what SF story originally featured the use of strangelet bombs? It was an Empire that used them on rebels, something like that?

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

As to where they got it? Starfleet, who the FRAK are you kidding? The KLINGONS had a complete copy of the damn thing. Including Kirk's VO commentary. Not to mention, their intel service aint exactly the sharpest in the universe. You guys pretending it's "A SECRET" is likely one of the top 5 laughers in the galaxy.

"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."

Swindle, found the story on Atomic Rockets, under Exotic Weapons. Which is embarassing, because I bookmarked that exact section ages ago. Now, I'm going to print it out so I won't forget it again. Thanks.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

How is the Genesis incident a secret? The Genesis planet was a big political hot potato that everyone knew about, and it was in front of the entire Federation Council, with the Klingons making a hissy fit about it, with them demanding Kirk's head and everything. This is not something Picard would have to briefed about. You may want to reword it to have Picard familiar with everything and just realizing that the Ascension developed technology along similar lines, only for weapons research instead of peaceful applications, like the Federation did. Otherwise it'd be like having a US Navy captain being unfamiliar with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Overall, I think you need to expand on your epilogue, give us Kim's, Riker's, Janeway's, Troi's, and Tuvok's perspectives as the war is over, as well as maybe the Ascension's viewpoint now that the mystery has been revealed. Their perspective now as compared to what it was.

This may be an overall good thing for the Federation, as building allies from their enemies with diplomacy overtime is one of their key strengths, and a lot of the Ascension's members are going to like how nice the Federation is. On the other hand, the Jack Pack might want to emigrate and pursue fulfilling lives in productive fields, or the Ascension might have medical tech that could help them with their neuroses that the Federation just never pursued. Given time, they could become the best of friends, now that the Ascension will have to confront the fact that their murderous boogeyman are actually a bunch of liberal tree huggers whose yard they just threw a molotov cocktail into over the fact that they wanted to bring over cookies and welcome them to the neighborhood. Well, depending on how free their society is when confronted with information that makes their society look bad.

Though, depending on Ascension society, considering they're descended from world-conquering-Augments. kicking helpless people in the face might be viewed as a good thing.

That is something that needs to be addressed a bit more in-story. Augments, in Trek canon, aside from Bashir, have a bit of a megalomaniac streak. Bashir has that arrogance as well, and it cost him socially and romantically until he humbled himself after a few years of people finding him incredibly rude. The Ascension should have similar issues. Look at the Augment trilogy from Enterprise, wherein in the first slip-up the leadership had, there was a coup for leadership. Giving the Ascension a pass on such issues seems to be making them a bit more Mary-Sueish than they should be. This is why I make a lot of mocking about them coming off that way, because they have all of the gifts with Trek augmentations, and none of the weaknesses.

It was decades ago; to use your Cuban Missile Crisis analogy, how many millenials (or older people, for that matter) know the details? I'm sure there are also lots of international 'incidents' where a foreign government and our government are aware of what happened, but the majority of people either have no clue or are misinformed as to the details. Clearly something happened in the Mutara Nebula, but the average person may not be privy as to exactly what happened, how, or why, especially if the Federation wanted to hush it up to avoid implications they were developing a weapon (as the Klingons alleged) and smooth it over to keep the Klingons happy.

Overall, I think you need to expand on your epilogue, give us Kim's, Riker's, Janeway's, Troi's, and Tuvok's perspectives as the war is over,

Valid point, and I will probably do that.

as well as maybe the Ascension's viewpoint now that the mystery has been revealed. Their perspective now as compared to what it was.

That's actually reserved for the upcoming sequel. Remember that bit about exchange officers? We'll also look more into Ascension society and the interactions between their various member races a bit more in depth, particularly from the perspective of a Starfleet officer on an Ascension ship, but the main focus would be on an exchange officer aboard a Federation vessel.

Ascension are Augments with all the pros, but none of the cons

You sure about that? They were pretty willing to execute enemy wounded and 'cowards', had a tendency to fight to the last man rather than surrender (and risk exposing their identity), blew up thousands of their own people along with incredibly expensive (in terms of time, resources, etc.) colonies, etc. And then there's the heavy-handed approach to bringing superweapons to the negotiating table, though they were quite reasonable in the negotiations themselves, all things considered. They were also arrogant enough to think that showing the Federation they were serious about starting a war if they weren't left alone would be enough to make the Feddies back off (and, to be fair, in TNG era they probably would have been right.), resulting in them getting dragged into a war they couldn't win. I thought it was pretty clear they weren't that different from Khan and his ilk.

As for a rewrite, perhaps I'll do it if I make a cleaned-up version to post all at once, but since this was mostly just throwing a scenario against the wall and seeing what stuck, I probably won't get around to it any time soon.

It was decades ago; to use your Cuban Missile Crisis analogy, how many millenials (or older people, for that matter) know the details? I'm sure there are also lots of international 'incidents' where a foreign government and our government are aware of what happened, but the majority of people either have no clue or are misinformed as to the details. Clearly something happened in the Mutara Nebula, but the average person may not be privy as to exactly what happened, how, or why, especially if the Federation wanted to hush it up to avoid implications they were developing a weapon (as the Klingons alleged) and smooth it over to keep the Klingons happy.

Would Picard be such a person, as he would already have clearance on the Omega Directive, and is already a very educated man regarding history, so much so as to have nearly been an archeologist, and is rather knowledgeable about Starfleet affairs. Carol Marcus is viewed as a household name, at least by Janeway, so knowledge of Genesis and the Genesis planet should be widely known. Him needing to be lectured on what exactly the Genesis device is and what it does is hard to believe without retconning quite a lot of how Trek works.

as well as maybe the Ascension's viewpoint now that the mystery has been revealed. Their perspective now as compared to what it was.

That's actually reserved for the upcoming sequel. Remember that bit about exchange officers? We'll also look more into Ascension society and the interactions between their various member races a bit more in depth, particularly from the perspective of a Starfleet officer on an Ascension ship, but the main focus would be on an exchange officer aboard a Federation vessel.

Looking forward to it.

Ascension are Augments with all the pros, but none of the cons

You sure about that? They were pretty willing to execute enemy wounded and 'cowards', had a tendency to fight to the last man rather than surrender (and risk exposing their identity), blew up thousands of their own people along with incredibly expensive (in terms of time, resources, etc.) colonies, etc. And then there's the heavy-handed approach to bringing superweapons to the negotiating table, though they were quite reasonable in the negotiations themselves, all things considered. They were also arrogant enough to think that showing the Federation they were serious about starting a war if they weren't left alone would be enough to make the Feddies back off (and, to be fair, in TNG era they probably would have been right.), resulting in them getting dragged into a war they couldn't win. I thought it was pretty clear they weren't that different from Khan and his ilk.

As for a rewrite, perhaps I'll do it if I make a cleaned-up version to post all at once, but since this was mostly just throwing a scenario against the wall and seeing what stuck, I probably won't get around to it any time soon.

The problem is, in-story, the Ascension isn't really called out on these actions. Out of universe, we know that these are pretty reprehensible actions, but the Ascension seems to always have a trick up their sleeve, and since we don't see their perspective, it seems like they are doing pretty well and are okay with fighting tooth and nail. The Federation never seems enraged that the Ascension are doing all these things. In fact, most of the time, we see the characters ooohing and aahing at the Ascension weaponry(see Bashir's mild applause for the Ascension weaponry while a few miles away from all his dead colleagues.) We don't see Fabio trying to capitulate, or seem desperate at all, more that he's giving a lecture on how bad the Federation is, and Riker and Troi have to grin and bear for most of it because they want peace.

We don't see a chapter of the Ascension being called out on attacking civilians by the galaxy because of footage from the Federation News Service, for example. Or any repercussions from fragger infantry soldier from the Ascension killing civilians. And when it's time to get a perspective from the rest of the galaxy, most of them seem to view it as the Federation's just desserts for expanding, and for a diatribe about how fucked up Janeway is as an ambassador. Might be plausible considering the lack of democratic governments in the Alpha Quadrant. It's a little odd to see the Ascension not having their foreign diplomacy blowing up in their faces as well for the other races not kneeling when their ambassadors tell them to(see Khan and Mcguyvers in Space Seed), and the general augment arrogance that comes in all affairs.

Sidebar: I know you like having Janeway as a punching bag, but it detracts from the story a bit, unless you want to examine her problems as a character in-depth, and have her either fleshed out with more of a redemption, or having her become a tragic villain. But as it is, she's more of a walking joke, something I'm not personally a fan of.

The only neighbors we've seen involved are the ones concerned about the conflict, and then only because they have a history with the Federation and don't want them nosing around, particularly in place of the Ascension, who explicitly aren't expansionist and are perfectly happy to leave their neighbors alone so long as they're treated in like kind. As we've seen in Trek, including the newest series, the Federation and its way of life isn't attractive to everyone. The only other races/nations in the story are the Ferengi, who are quite happy to play both sides and are eager to sell to the Ascension, and the Klingons, and the only thing we've seen from them was Worf intervening in a battle with a flimsy excuse for doing so; the rest of the Klingons are perfectly happy to let the Federation handle their own problems. To be perfectly blunt, we never see what the Federation's other neighbors (Cardassians, Romulans, etc.) think because those neighbors are either preoccupied with their own problems, don't give a crap either way because it's none of their business, or are otherwise irrelevant to the story. In canon Trek, we never saw how the Cardassians responded to the Federation intervention in the Klingon civil war and cockblocking the Romulans when they backed Duras, for example.

And while I did play Janeway as a joke in a couple points, I mostly wanted to portray her as having serious issues that were a problem for her. Perhaps if I do a rewrite, there will be more from her perspective showing this.

Because - in-verse, they HADN'T EVEN INVENTED Cardies , YET. so dont bother

The Genesis Torpedo (and yes it WAS a torpedo; an invention that BLUUUUUU Sky scientist came up with that should have been dawed off at the hips from the start) was not quite the Death Star, but it sure as hell was a very bad , destabilizing idea. At a time, where the EMPIRE WAS tottering on the brink of collapse, aka the Soviets in 1985. Not a good thing for dealing with a species who only think in terms of RAR!! KILL ALLL!!! Best to not dwell on it. The Roms after all, did do some stuff with Trilithium and killing stars they never confirmed or denied ..

"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."

Fair enough, but they are a minor threat, treated by the Klingons like the Sovs treated the ChiCom. An annoyance who if they devoted their full attention to, would be CRUSHED like insects. Only the Feds are retarded enough to make deals to end a war they are winning

"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."

Fair enough, but they are a minor threat, treated by the Klingons like the Sovs treated the ChiCom. An annoyance who if they devoted their full attention to, would be CRUSHED like insects. Only the Feds are retarded enough to make deals to end a war they are winning

Or preferred to play the long game and win via diplomacy. A few years later, and without Dominion intervention, the Cardassians would have been groomed to becoming Federation members(as they were getting closer and closer to a civilian government, gave Bajor several nice treaties as they reformed, establishing closer ties with the Federation via science and diplomacy, and were having more and more free speech and unrest in their populace). if Gul Dukat hadn't betrayed the Alpha Quadrant to the Dominion, the Cardassians would probably have been Federation members shortly after Bajor became one.

After the Dominion war, the Cardassians are probably going to fall under Federation protection, and are being groomed for Federation membership as they're being given aid and rebuilt. Better that as a strategy than a pointless occupation of Cardassia that would have taken away resources from the Romulan neutral zone, or later on, the dealing with Dominion problems and their influence in the Klingon Empire and other factions that they were trying to subvert.